Contacts help Mesa ticket-selling company grow

The decline in donations in the months following Sept. 11, 2001, led to somewhat of an economic recession for non-profit business owner Lynne King Smith and her husband, Brad.

But Smith discovered that the vast contact list she built up while running her now-dormant non-profit provided a good foundation for TicketForce, the Mesa-based national ticketing company she founded with her husband in 2003.

The couple had operated YouthForce, a non-profit that coordinated training events for people and groups that worked with teenagers. As a result, Smith had accumulated a healthy mailing list of concert and event promoters who wanted to appeal to teens.

After 2001, Smith said she noticed that funding became scarce and more difficult to procure as donors moved away from financially supporting organizations with missions similar to hers.

She and Brad looked at their contact list and decided to pursue a different business model.

They started with a core of a dozen promoters and then gained relationships with venues. Today, TicketForce annually works with 300 to 400 promoters and 100 contracted venues, including local sites like Celebrity Theatre.

The original plan to focus on Arizona events and venues gave way to going national after the couple realized they had good contacts in Ohio and New Mexico.

"It was a natural shift," said Smith, who is the CEO of TicketForce. "It was also a challenge. We had to focus where we were going to be in the market. When you have an Internet-based business, you don't have to stay limited. We could take it to another level."

To compete with big-name ticket agencies, service fees are kept comparatively low. TicketForce charges 12 percent to 18 percent of the ticket price vs. the 20 percent or more that other services charge, Smith said. Typically, TicketForce customers pay 50 cents to $2 per ticket in fees.

"If your fees are going to be as high (as the major competitors'), you are not going to make it," Smith said.

Utilizing new programs, software and procedures to improve service is also part of the plan.

"We are not a bargain, discount company that gets by, barely making it and not putting in anything new. But we try to be fair and reasonable to the public," Smith said.

The company did not feel the impact of the recession until the end of 2009, when partnering venues took a dip in revenue, she said. To prepare for financial uncertainty, Smith said she worked up budgets for 2010 and 2011 as if the company had gained no new clients - even though it had.

"That ended up being a fortuitous thing to do," she said.

This year, clients have appeared to bounce back and ticket sales are up, she said. There were no layoffs at TicketForce and staff members agreed to put in overtime as an alternative to hiring additional personnel, Smith said.

In January, the company started offering Facebook Ticketing, an application that simplifies the purchasing process by allowing patrons to buy event tickets through a venue's Facebook page without leaving it.

Smith said about 10 percent to 20 percent of her clients' sales are done through this application.

Smith has an educational and professional background in business and marketing. Her husband is a licensed minister with networking experience. Together, they run a small business that is nimble and able to accommodate the needs of clients. If customers wish to order tickets over the phone, there is a full-time staff ready to take their orders instead of an automated system.

That has been key to the company's success, Smith said.

"It's more personal. I like that we have the ability to stay friendly with how we do customer service," she said. "I think you are more agile when you are smaller."

The Tempe Center for the Arts selected TicketForce to handle their tickets right before it opened five years ago. In addition to being reasonably priced, the company has simplified the process of selling tickets for the venue's hundreds of events each year, said Kara Osburn, who manages the box office for the center.

Osburn said the company makes it easy to add discount codes and coupons and said lengthy procedures at other agencies take very little time at TicketForce.